Garden On, Vashon

In so many ways, Sherene & Rick’s garden is an exercise in “Be Here, Now.”

When you come visit their garden on Indian Head, you’ll be handed a flyer that guides you down the “Meditation Path” they’ve created across their hillside. At its many stations, cued by quotation plaques and art, you can take in the distant view, the Wisdom of the Ages…

…and the inescapable feeling that while your thoughts may be high-flying, your feet are on precarious ground.

The Skillman/Zolno garden is on a high terrace of Indian Head, a forested slope of firs and maples, hemlocks and madrones, of leaf-muck clay and sandy pockets. Because it’s so steep, the soil wants to “Go Down There, Now” (it’s tried, at least three times) and so a garden has been developed to hold the land in place. 

Let’s take it from the top: the Salmon Gate, made by Rick Skillman, Valerie Willson & Penny Grist (artist credits for the many artworks will be on the flyer, so I won’t go on repeating them). The gate opens onto the head of a steep ravine where, in 1998, a large big-leaf maple fell, taking slopes, new paths, and brand-new stairway with it. To hold and restore this ground, Sherene replanted in natives like red-flowering currant, rhodies, nootka rose, and snowberry, which close to the paths is trimmed hedge-fashion.

As you wind down the stairs toward the greenhouse, you’ll come to a style of pipe-n-beam terracing that you’ll see throughout the garden. Three years after they moved here in 1995, their gardener Beth Kellner noticed sand eroding into the garage from the slope above. She recommended Al Bradley, rock and retaining wall specialist; he and crew drove rows of steel pipe 10-14 feet down into hardpan, then stacked 12′x4′ beams of PT behind the pipes (they’re masked by Rick’s wood-box “posts”).

When they noticed erosion around the south side of the house, Al started a new wall that ended up joining Rick’s goat-path to a plum tree he’d discovered east, buried under blackberries (the “Bodhi Tree”). That wall project laid down a path, which required a stairs, which needed a landing, on which Rick built a shelter, that now overhangs the pool that collects the waterfall that cascades down the stairs. One garden project suggested another.

Rick became very skilled at building wooden garden features, such as the Yogananda and St. Francis shelters. A devotee of Yogananda, he built the bench at the foot of the “Bodhi Tree”, their blackberry-rescued plum, and installed statues of Yogananda and the hermit saint Babaji. Beth and Sherene built a rock garden where the Yogananda statue sits today, and when Beth retired, Sherene took over all the gardening duties. She spends about 30% of her time now, gardening. (“70% prepping for tour,” she added.)

And they became art collectors. Down by the Dockton Overlook Deck, search for Rick’s “Sprite” garden of little figurines. 

The latest art, installed two weeks ago, is a railing of painted iron and blown-glass by Tacoma counselor/minister/iron-worker Chris Causey. The railing leads to the original lawn, which is ringed by perennials and two magnolias kept low against the view. Toward the back is an bellflower/astilbe/lily garden.

And there, you’ll find the latest bit of ground to succumb: it’s marked by a vertical field of foxgloves. This ground gave way in January 2009. Again, Al Bradley and Dave Stout battened down the ground, while Sherene and helper Norm replanted in natives, laying 25′ ladders upon the face of the slide for access to the slippery slope. 

Sherene, Rick, and their helpers have turned problems into opportunities. Take in their garden when you’re ready for inspiration and for the many rest-stops along their Meditation Path. And along the way, say a prayer for their garden: that it will “Be Here, Now” for the long run.

Tickets for the VAA Garden Tour, June 26-27, are available at the Blue Heron Art Center or online: www.vashonalliedarts.org.
Visitors should park above the garden on Pillsbury Road and enter the garden through the “Salmon Gate.” There’s limited “drop-off” parking at the bottom of a steep driveway.